Turns the World
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPLM. After the war, Harry finds out just how exhausted he is. It's kind of nice having Lucius Malfoy under house arrest instead of in Azkaban, so that Harry doesn't have to deal with worries about him escaping or dying. And if no one else is willing to keep an eye on Lucius, well, Harry is. It's almost restful, watching the way his and Lucius's lives interlace. COMPLETE.


**Title:** Turns the World  
 **Disclaimer:** J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.  
 **Pairing:** Harry/Lucius, background canon pairings mentioned  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Content Notes:** Ignores epilogue, mild angst, present tense  
 **Wordcount:** 3600  
 **Summary:** After the war, Harry finds out just how exhausted he is. It's kind of nice having Lucius Malfoy under house arrest instead of in Azkaban, so that Harry doesn't have to deal with worries about him escaping or dying. And if no one else is willing to keep an eye on Lucius, well, Harry is. It's almost restful, watching the way his and Lucius's lives interlace.  
 **Author's Notes:** A very quiet little one-shot.

 **Turns the World**

"Can you _believe_ the git got off with just house arrest for a year?"

There's more, but Harry knows how to handle Ron's ranting about the Malfoys by now. He nods and grunts and shakes his head and voices a small outraged word here and there. They're in the Leaky Cauldron, right after the Malfoys' trial, but Ron has been talking about them practically since the war ended.

Harry shares the outrage. In one part of himself. But the biggest part of him is just wrung dry after months of funerals and pressure and trials and huge decisions and one assassination attempt on him by Fenrir Greyback, and he wants to _relax_. That part of him is fucking delighted that Lucius got house arrest, Draco got a mandated year at Hogwarts with Aurors coming to check his wand every week, and Narcissa got no punishment at all.

It's one less thing he has to worry about, one less thing he has to worry will create grudges in the tried Death Eaters or Azkaban escape attempts. And that means one less thing to debate and exhaust himself over.

"You know what he did to Ginny!"

"Sure do," Harry says, and sips his butterbeer, and watches the patterns the smoke makes in the air.

* * *

"I hate giving you this duty, Harry. But, honestly…no one else wants to do it, and we need _someone_ to keep an eye on Lucius if we're not going to have half the public up in arms. I know you have a lot going on with getting ready for Auror training—"

Harry interrupts Kingsley with a wave of his hand. Honestly, if he doesn't, the man will keep him here, nervously rambling, for the next hour. "I don't mind, Kingsley. As for the training, I'm not sure I want to be an Auror anymore."

Kingsley smiles back at him. "Ron told me you were feeling a little tired of chasing Dark wizards. But this'll give you a chance to recover. You can wait until next year to enter training if you want."

"Yeah, maybe. Now, what do you want me to keep an eye out for while I'm there?"

"Oh, Dark artifacts, of course. Any sign that Lucius is receiving suspicious packages by owl. Signs of blood prejudice. He's not supposed to use magic anywhere outside the house, so if you see some of the grounds, report that. Anything out of the ordinary."

Harry smiles a little as he stands up. It sounds easy enough, but he's amused that Kingsley thinks _Harry Potter_ , of all people, still has a reasonable scale for what "out of the ordinary" looks like.

* * *

"Come in, Potter."

There is maybe something suspicious in the way Lucius steps back from the door to invite him into the Manor, but Harry doesn't care. He looks around and casts a few quick detection spells, then nods. Nothing Dark in sight. "Do you mind if I walk through the house? You can stay with me, or have a house-elf take me."

Lucius pauses ahead of him and turns around. His face is stark, bone white, as is his hair. Harry frowns. He doesn't remember that from the trials. "You would trust me to stay down here and not hide something while a house-elf took you through?"

Harry meets his eyes. "I listened to your testimony during the trial," he says quietly. "I know you changed your mind about Voldemort before the end." He ignores the flinch. "You just wanted to keep your family safe. What you did before that was awful, yes. But the Ministry's already punished you. I'm not here to add to that punishment. Just to make sure that you keep the terms of it."

Lucius studies him with a hint of the old sharpness in his face. "And you mean to tell me that _Harry Potter_ has forgiven me?"

"For what I can forgive you for." Harry shrugs. "There are things, like what you did to Ginny, that she would have to talk to you about. I don't think I have the right to say one way or the other. But for your part in what happened to _me_?" He holds Lucius's gaze. "Yes."

"I did hear that you had forgiven Severus…"

"Yes. And Greyback after his assassination attempt on me. Of course, having him locked away in Azkaban for life does help with that."

For that, Harry receives a thin smile. "Look around, Potter," Lucius says, and sends his cloak swinging out around the empty corridor as he gestures. "I'll send a house-elf with you. Noddy!" The elf who appears is bigger than Dobby and apparently not so intimidated. "Take Mr. Potter around the upstairs."

Harry nods to Lucius and proceeds up the first flight. He can feel Lucius watching him from below, but by the time he turns around, Lucius has already gone back into what appears to be a sitting room.

Memories of when he was held captive here do try to trouble him, but honestly, Harry doesn't have the time or the headspace for them, and they'll have to get in line.

There's nothing Dark anywhere in sight, or spell detection. Harry leaves with a final nod to the house-elf, content. He knew Lucius wasn't stupid.

* * *

"How often are these visits of yours going to be, Potter?"

"Once-weekly, is what Kingsley said." Harry lounges in a chair near the fire, watching Lucius open a package that came by owl. It's filled with vials of Pepper-Up Potion, nothing else. Harry supposes he'll still have to put it in his report for Kingsley.

Fill the reports with boring and mundane details enough times, and Kingsley might stop asking the questions. Kingsley's still insanely busy even though the Death Eater trials are over, anyway. He'll need to drop this pretense of being concerned about Lucius sooner or later.

"You don't appear to think there's a need for them."

Harry shrugs. "I don't, really, but someone has to do it, and I'd rather it was me."

"Why? You've spoken to me about your exhaustion, about how you don't think you can do much more to help the wizarding world, and yet here you are."

Harry watches the smoke come out of the sealed vials—not tightly-sealed, Lucius ought to buy them somewhere else—as he answers. "If someone else was here, he'd probably be poking his nose into all sorts of corners and asking all sorts of questions. That would just make you resentful. And Draco resentful, probably. And your wife—"

"Ex-wife, now," Lucius corrects. When Harry blinks at him, Lucius shakes his head. "We thought it better for her. She can distance herself from me and start a new life in France with her old last name. Draco will have the option of joining her there, if he wants, when he leaves Hogwarts."

"But…" Harry can't think of any good reason for this. "It was just a year of house arrest. And a year of Hogwarts and restricted magic. Why…"

"Draco finds it intolerable," Lucius answers quietly, cracking the seal on another letter. "To have fallen from the privileges we had."

"Oh." Harry thinks about saying something, but in the end, he honestly doesn't think it's any of his business. He stretches out on the chair and closes his eyes while he half-dozes in the sunlight falling through the window.

"Mr. Potter, kindly do not make my house-elves have to remove you," Lucius says idly as he reads through another letter, from the sound of it.

"Oh, it's just that the chair is comfortable," Harry murmurs into his arm. The warmth is comfortable, too, but he reckons Lucius probably knows that. He might not have realized about the chair. "Is this what lots of ancestors gets you? Comfortable chairs and warm fireplaces?"

Lucius answers. Harry doesn't hear it.

* * *

"What happened to the peacocks?" Harry asks, standing on a balcony on the second floor of Malfoy Manor and looking out over the grass. There are only a few white birds in sight, and they seem to peck at the flowers and stalk around sullenly.

"The Dark Lord's snake ate many of them."

Harry blinks and turns to look at Lucius, who stands inside the sliding glass door that lets out onto the balcony. "Oh. I'm sorry?" he ventures after a second. He doesn't know whether the peacocks were actually pets or not.

Lucius rolls his eyes, the way Harry tended to do in those first weeks when Lucius would ask him some question designed to take him off-guard and make him reveal his supposed real intentions. "Thank you, Mr. Potter. Now, come inside, please. Merlin alone knows what the Ministry would say if I let the Boy-Who-Lived get pneumonia."

* * *

"I'll bet you'll be glad when you can give up on these visits to Malfoy, mate."

"Yeah," Harry agrees, not because he really thinks that, but because it's easier than getting into an argument with Ron. He swallows some of the chicken floating in thick stew and smiles up at Molly. "This is great, Mrs. Weasley."

"What have I _told_ you to call me?" Molly reaches out to tap him on the head with her wooden spoon. Harry ducks, grinning. The one thing he isn't tired of is Molly's food and how riled he can make her with just a few words.

"Mrs. Weasley."

"I did _not_ , Harry!"

Harry keeps teasing her, glad to see her smile brighten her face. It's been rare enough in the months since Fred's death. George's is even rarer, but Harry makes sure to spend time with him once a week in the joke shop, helping serve clients, encouraging him to keep it open, or just listening as George rants about how unfair it is that he's alone. The listening helps, Harry thinks. The rest of the Weasleys try, but their healing involves noise, and, well.

He hasn't told anyone else that he doesn't think he'll be an Auror yet. He knows Hermione, home from Hogwarts for Christmas, will bully him into taking his NEWTS, and Ron will protest loudly. And then he might end up going into the training just to keep them both happy.

He doesn't want to do that. He loves his friends dearly, but he's just so _tired_.

"More chicken, Harry?"

Harry hands the plate over to Molly, pausing before he takes it back. He's thought of something a little strange.

The way he visits George and listens to him…it's oddly like the way he visits Lucius and listens to him.

* * *

"Why are you here, Potter?"

Harry looks at Draco, mildly impressed that he still has the stamina to stand there in front of Harry, twirling his wand, and glare at him. Harry doesn't feel anything at the sight of Draco except tiredness, dropping like dust on his eyelids. He glances up when he sees a movement behind Draco, and nods to Lucius coming down the stairs.

"To spend time with me," Lucius says, and sweeps his cloak out of the way. "Mr. Potter is my Ministry-approved visitor." He exchanges cordial nods with Harry and leads the way towards the sitting room where they usually conduct their discussions. He apparently assumes that of course Harry will step around Draco and follow.

So Harry does.

"I wasn't done _talking_ to you, Potter!"

Harry pauses and looks over his shoulder. He will have to find the words, it seems. "I don't want to fight you, Malfoy," he says simply. "I don't wish you any ill will. I hope you get to do what you want to do." He tries to think of something else, but no, that's really all he wants to say to Draco sodding Malfoy. He gives a courteous nod and then turns to follow Lucius down the corridor.

Lucius is chuckling by the time Harry catches up with him. At this time of year, there isn't any warm sunlight coming through the windows, but there's still plenty of heat from the fireplace. "I never thought I would see the day you left Draco speechless," he says, and hands Harry a glass of the wine he's poured.

The wine's mulled. That means Harry can warm his hands on the glass, too, a fact that delights him. "I'm tired, Lucius. I don't see the point in spending words on him when I don't really _care_ anymore."

That stills Lucius's laughter. He leans back in his chair and regards Harry with his head on one side. "I had thought you understood Ministry politics now and simply wished to stay out of them. But it's more than that, isn't it?"

Harry nods and sips his wine. It's very good, and the spices make his tongue tingle and burn pleasantly. "I'm _tired_. Exhausted. Not a whole lot seems like it's worth the effort. This is, and visiting the Weasleys, and spending time with Ron and Hermione." He tries to think of something else, then shrugs and adds, "And eating good food. Enough to get me out of bed in the morning."

"I am flattered to be part of such an august company."

Harry can't really understand Lucius's tone, so he shrugs again and kicks his feet up to put them on another chair and says, "You should be." Then he tips his head back and lets the silence and the warmth pour over him.

Lucius is quiet. Harry blinks his eyes open what could be five minutes or an hour later, and sees Lucius watching him with a soft gaze. He doesn't look away when Harry glances at him, either.

"You're welcome to stay here as long as you like, Mr. Potter. And I hope that you'll find something else worthy of getting out of bed in the morning."

Harry nods and closes his eyes again. When he feels a warm weight come to rest on his ankle, he doesn't see any reason to mention it.

* * *

"I really do need you to finish that application if you're going to be in Auror training with this cohort, Harry."

Harry blinks lazily at Kingsley. The Minister took the trouble of Flooing Harry at home, which deserves the courtesy of a reply. "Sorry, Kingsley. Not doing it."

"Well, I suppose we can try to hold open a spot for you in the next one—"

"I mean that I'm not going to be an Auror at all. I decided." Harry stretches and marvels at the feeling of well-being flowing down his limbs. He's been having that lately. It seems Lucius's wish that he find something else worthy of getting out of bed in the morning has proven true. He's excited about his future career.

"You don't have to decide that so suddenly, Harry." Kingsley looks both surprised and uncomfortable. "You've been depressed, I know that—"

"No, Hermione thought I was," Harry corrects. "I went to a Mind-Healer because she asked me to." In fact, he spent more time asking the Mind-Healer questions than the other way around. It helped lead him to his decision. "I wasn't depressed. I was just exhausted. I needed some time to rest and think about what I was going to do before I made a choice."

"And what's your choice?"

Harry smiles at Kingsley. "I'm going to become a Grief-Healer. Like a Mind-Healer, but they deal mostly with grief," he adds, when he sees Kingsley open his mouth. "It's a specialty. A few people train that way in St. Mungo's every year, but not a whole lot of people realize it's separate training. Of course they can be regular Mind-Healers too if they don't have enough grieving clients."

"I—would have thought the last thing you would want to spend time dealing with was others' grief."

Harry shakes his head. "I want to deal with helping them _get better._ I'm already sort of doing that for George and Molly. And I've listened to other people, too." Perhaps better not to tell the man who assigned him to spy on Lucius what he and Lucius talk about. "I saw the way George's face shone the last time I made him laugh. That's when I realized."

"I see." Kingsley sighs. "Well, I think you'll probably be good at it, but I am sorry to lose you as a future Auror."

"Don't worry," Harry hastens to say. "I'll finish out the year of visiting Lucius Malfoy to make sure he stays under house arrest."

Kingsley looks at him for a second, maybe because he answered too fast, or maybe at the way his voice lingered over Lucius's first name. In the end, he nods shortly and says, "As you will." Then he disappears from the flames, back to whatever he was doing before he interrupted it to talk to Harry.

Harry smiles, and goes back to stretching. He stands for five minutes like that, just letting his muscles work. Yes, it's going to be a fine day.

* * *

"You seem—overly-pleased about this new decision."

Harry laughs and drapes himself over the chair that's always his when he comes to the Manor. The sun is out today, and Harry looks up at it and thinks about flying in it, for the first time in almost eight months. "It's only the way I am most of the time. You haven't seen me like that. Most of the time I've been visiting you, I was getting back to normal, and deciding on what I really wanted to do."

"I see."

Lucius's voice wobbled there. Harry tilts his head to study him. Lucius is looking out the window into the gardens, his nose as sharp as a Cutting Curse. Harry shakes his head. "Don't be silly, Lucius. I didn't mean that I was happy to visit you when I was exhausted and I'll stop now that I'm getting back to normal. You're part of my life whether it's normal or not."

Lucius's shoulders hunch, but he only says, "You'll be able to stop visiting me soon."

"You aren't looking forward to that?"

Lucius's head tilts towards him, and the expression on his face has gone to delicately incredulous.

"But it's the end of your house arrest," Harry says, and stands up. He thought they both understood each other. It's time to show Lucius that his thoughts are ridiculous. He strolls up to his chair. Lucius has gone back to looking at the gardens and the white peacocks strutting around. There seem to be more of them than last year.

Harry wouldn't have dared do this only a month ago. But then, he hadn't made his decision. He was still caught in that pattern where he was exhausted and thought made him want to stop thinking.

Now, he lays his hands on Lucius's shoulder and turns his head back. Lucius is already gripping the arms of his chair as if he'll rise.

That's fine with Harry, because Lucius rises right into his kiss.

Lucius stiffens all over. Harry smiles at the thought of what "all over" might entail, and he slides his hand down Lucius's chest for a second before Lucius snatches it and flings effort into the kiss. Then Harry has all he can do to keep himself from falling over and landing on Lucius's lap, and they sway back and forth, uncertain in balance.

But not in the pressure of their mouths against each other's.

When they part, Lucius traces Harry's jaw with a hand that holds no tremors. But his tone does. "You are sure this is what you want? I am much older, marked with the Dark Lord's wrath—"

Harry snorts and taps the scar he doesn't think much about anymore. "I hate to break it to you, Lucius, but you aren't exactly bloody _unique._ "

"There remains the age issue. And the displeasure of your friends."

"I love the way you retreat into formality when you're worried. It's adorable."

Lucius glares at Harry. Harry raises his eyebrows and says, "It's like I told you the first time I saw you after the trial. I can't forgive you for what you did to Ginny. Only _she_ can do that. And only _I_ can tell you why I want to be with you. My friends' objections will have to take care of themselves."

Lucius's hands flex and tighten on him. "I want only—" He hesitates, but Harry can't blame him when he hears the reasoning. To Lucius, a plunge into honesty of this magnitude must be like a leap into a cold lake. "I want only to be reassured that you will not pull back when your friends object to this."

"No," Harry says. "There might be other reasons, if you find them. But I won't." He smiles and caresses Lucius's hair. It's not completely white after all, he realizes. Just a very pale gold, far paler than Draco's. "I want the silence and the warmth you can give me, and the life we're going to find together."

Lucius stares at him in some of that silence. Then he leans forwards, and his kiss gives Harry something he hasn't had for years, despite thinking he was living in it.

Peace.

 **The End.**


End file.
